Things to do to avoid writing . . .

Get a snack. This is a long list.

Starting with: Get a snack. Walk the dog. Stare out the window. Play solitaire. Knit something that is destined to fit no one. Crochet a cover to fit a tennis ball. Mend socks. Swim. Read a magazine about something you already know or don’t care about. Feed the dogs, the family, the worms (another story), the plants, yourself (nothing healthy, see above). Clean off desk by putting everything in neat stacks and then shuffle the papers up again. Do taxes (only works once a year, but provides weeks of obsessive hand wringing). Answer email. Read the news anxiously as if reading can change the world and as if in not reading every little announcement, you have abandoned the world and in its last final gasp, everyone will blame you. Write blog entries. Sweep under the dining room table without moving the chairs, no use overdoing it. Get to the airport too early or too late, both are distractions, but the late option messes with your blood pressure longer. Reboot. Run a virus check on the computer. Call the kids so you can say, well, that’s it, I really didn’t have anything to say. Check the time on the clock on the kitchen stove, the one in the office isn’t good enough. More solitaire. File nails. Search for just the right pen. Take a finger shriveling bath long enough to knock off a Tolstoy or a couple of Shakespeares. Count the pores in your nose. Remove a kitchen wall (deadlines require extreme measures). Walk the beach and collect glass. Put the dogs out in the backyard, it’s been hours (days) since walking them last. Clean out that little catch basin in the car where three pennies are fused to the plastic by a month old coffee spill. Plan a trip. A long trip. A trip requiring visas and multiple calls to travel agents and visits to cranky websites. Read other people’s books that have been sent to you and marvel at how they ever got them done. Wow. Watch a rerun and to see if it turns out the same way it did the last time. Rewash the load of laundry you left in the machine a couple days ago and is beginning to smell like sauerkraut. Satisfy your desperate need to go by vitamins to make you think clearer. While you are out, go to Home Depot and buy any project that requires installation and tools you can’t find. Gather up last seasons clothes and put them in tubs all over the bedroom. Belly crawl under the bed looking for stray socks. Attempt to learn photoshop. Do this without classes or a book that would make the process go smoothly. Use hours, days, weeks wandering art sites on line and downloading brushes.

In fact, if you really get into the photoshop thing –just hand the dog a leash and tell him/her to take a hike, because Photoshop will eat your entire day, days on end. No problem. Photoshop is the best time sucker there is.